Importance of heart rate
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ajit_kane
Posts: 11 Member
Is it really important to know the actual heart rate to calculate the calorie burned from an exercise? I get two very different answers depending on whether or not I use the heart rate in the calorie calculations. Are there any good articles or websites that explain this in detail?
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For me, I get the best reading by going off my HRM vs the machines or the databases online. The online databases and machines seem to WAY overestimate calories burned. Also, calories burned vary depending upon age, body type, gender, and other factors... so for your individual estimates, a HRM might be better.
Plus, it's nice to see those calories burned adding up during the workouts.
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Somebody flagged this; it really is January in December in MFP land. hehehehe
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HRMs are really good for an accurate count of calories burned. I'm in really good shape and I get nowhere near the calorie burn reported in MFP for a workout. Even Zumba, which is supposed to burn 400 to 1000 calories an hour. I do a max of 300 and I work really hard at it (I'm a front row Diva).0
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_Terrapin_ wrote: »
Somebody flagged this; it really is January in December in MFP land. hehehehe
What the....?
What on earth for?
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How so? its well known you burn more calories when you exert more energy. Two 5'8, 24yr, 165lb males running a 24 minute 3 mile could burn completely different amounts of calories depending on how good of shape they are in. It might be considerably easier for one person, meaning he exerts less energy and burns less calories than the other kid who has to work much harder to get the same time.
The only accurate way to calculate that exertion is by heart rate. Without knowing your heart rate, its just making a general calculation and doesnt differeniate between someone who runs everyday and someone who never exercises at all.0 -
The only accurate way to calculate that exertion is by heart rate. Without knowing your heart rate, its just making a general calculation and doesnt differeniate between someone who runs everyday and someone who never exercises at all.
Not so. Generally, the most accurate method is to measure the amount of oxygen a person uses during an activity. That requires special equipment that none of us want to purchase or use. HRMs are viewed as a fairly good estimate because heart rate goes up as oxygen usage increases. The problem with that is that no two people use the same amount of oxygen per heartbeat.
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How so? its well known you burn more calories when you exert more energy.
Yes. But "exertion" does NOT correlate well with heart rate, between people. What you are talking about is perceived exertion, which the universe doesn't give a damn about.Two 5'8, 24yr, 165lb males running a 24 minute 3 mile could burn completely different amounts of calories depending on how good of shape they are in.
Nope. Assuming they're both actually running, their calorie burns will be very very similar.It might be considerably easier for one person, meaning he exerts less energy and burns less calories than the other kid who has to work much harder to get the same time.
No. In fact that's basically backwards - being fit means being able to burn MORE calories in the same amount of time.The only accurate way to calculate that exertion is by heart rate.
See above - no, no no.
This is discussed at length in many, many MFP threads, it's worth using Search to dig into the archives.0 -
Interesting, I never knew that but it makes sense. Although, it still seems like hrm's are much better than just using general estimations in online databases. When I asked my doctor about all this, he just told me to use a hrm if i really wanted to be serious.0
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Interesting, I never knew that but it makes sense. Although, it still seems like hrm's are much better than just using general estimations in online databases. When I asked my doctor about all this, he just told me to use a hrm if i really wanted to be serious.
If you want to be fairly serious about it, you can do a baseline running test, for which it is easy to get quite accurate burn numbers (weigh in pounds * distance in miles * 0.65). Then you can translate this using perceived exertion into other activities by using "MET" tables (Metabolic Equivalent of Task).
So for an elliptical, as an example...if you ellipt for 40 minutes, and you know you can run 3 miles in 40 minutes, you can work out the calorie burn for running 40 minutes and then multiply it by 0.5 because MET tells us the same level of exertion on an elliptical burns half the calories of running.
(All numbers approximate in that example, you can google the actual MET for virtually any activity.)
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Interesting, I never knew that but it makes sense. Although, it still seems like hrm's are much better than just using general estimations in online databases. When I asked my doctor about all this, he just told me to use a hrm if i really wanted to be serious.
If you want to be fairly serious about it, you can do a baseline running test, for which it is easy to get quite accurate burn numbers (weigh in pounds * distance in miles * 0.65). Then you can translate this using perceived exertion into other activities by using "MET" tables (Metabolic Equivalent of Task).
So for an elliptical, as an example...if you ellipt for 40 minutes, and you know you can run 3 miles in 40 minutes, you can work out the calorie burn for running 40 minutes and then multiply it by 0.5 because MET tells us the same level of exertion on an elliptical burns half the calories of running.
(All numbers approximate in that example, you can google the actual MET for virtually any activity.)
^ This, all day long!0
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